Watch out Schenectady, Miles of Smiles is in town!

On August 12, hundreds and hundreds of smiling faces will flood State Street to show their support for the city and Habitat for Humanity of Schenectady County.

In June, Buzz Media Solutions assembled a committee of community members in an effort to spread smiles throughout Schenectady. Fast forward to today where #MilesOfSmiles has transformed into a global initiative to spread smiles around the world.

Miles of Smiles is challenging communities across the globe to show their smiles and support their local Habitat for Humanity chapters through donations.

#SchenectadySmiles is the first mile in the global campaign that will debut right here in Downtown Schenectady.

Community members are creating t-shirts, banners, and signs representing businesses and neighborhoods and will join together in the heart of downtown to showcase all of the positive things going on in Schenectady. Participants will be encouraged to show their smile and support Habitat for Humanity.

“It’s all about community pride,” said Jeff Goronkin of Buzz Media Solutions. “This will be an appreciation thing. In Schenectady, we’re lining up for a mile but anyone or any group, in any community can show off their community pride with a simple smile and post it to social media with the hashtag, #MilesOfSmiles. We want to encourage people to use their creativity to show the world their smile.”

At 11:00 am, once everyone is lined up, a procession of a fire truck, police vehicle, another vehicle filled with members of the media, and the Capital Regions very own Smile Monster will make their way down State Street to document the Mile of Smiles and get the crowd excited!

Buzz Media is working with local groups like the Downtown Schenectady Improvement Corp. and The Capital Region Chamber to ensure that everyone is involved in the smile campaign.

“Everyone wants to feel great about where they live, work and play, and an event like Miles of Smiles gives Schenectady a fun and creative outlet to accentuate the positive,” said Jim Salengo, Downtown Schenectady Improvement Corp.’s Executive Director. “We love to see people smile while enjoying the many fantastic things to see and do in downtown.” He added, “We can’t wait to see our district smiling from end to end… literally!”

One hope is that the smiles become contagious and spread throughout the county and across the globe. “This is a feel good initiative that can easily be replicated in creative ways in other communities. It doesn’t have to be a mile, it can be as simple as a few smiles. We’re planning to challenge people in other regions. Get ready, get set…,” said Goronkin.

Buzz Media Solutions has launched a web page with a Smile Tracker provided by Trendsmap.com. The smile tracker follows geotagged Twitter posts and displays the trend on a map. Goronkin said, “We’re very fortunate to be able to follow #MilesOfSmiles as other communities across the world get involved with the initiative.”

The new website highlights simple ways people can get involved and a link is provided to quickly locate local Habitat for Humanity chapters to make donations.

When:

Wednesday, August 12, 2015

Where:

The Mile of Smiles will extend down State St. in Schenectady, NY between MVP Health Care on Nott Terrace and Schenectady County Community College on Washington Ave.

Smile-goers are asked to line up on the north side (across from Proctors) and spread out so that there are no gaps. A large turnout is expected and people are encouraged to gather on State Street between Erie Blvd. and Washington and on Washington to SCCC.

Time:

10:30 – Businesses, residents, and all other community members will begin lining up

11:00 – The procession will begin from MVP and end at SCCC

Fatal error: Call to undefined function wp_cache_get_last_changed() in /home/content/45/12075845/html/wp-includes/class-wp-comment-query.php on line 396